New poll: Democrats' real problem isn't being too liberal — it's being seen as too weak Americans, including swing voters, see the Republican Party as 20 points more extreme than Democrats — and the Democrats as weak and ineffective. So why would the *Democrats* moderate?

www.gelliottmorris.com/p/new-poll-d...

ICE is not about immigration.

ICE is about normalizing a paramilitary force on peaceful streets.

Abolish ICE.

Trump's playbook is to blame every problem on immigrants. But immigrants didn't take your job or spike your healthcare. Here's who did…

GAELYNN’S NEW BOOK It Wasn’t Meant to Be PerfectA Memoir RELEASE DATE: April 14, 2026PUBLISHER: Algonquin Books HOST A BOOK EVENT WITH GAELYNN LEA A love letter to every kind of body—an ode to music, to creativ…

Get a copy of my book here: violinscratches.com/book

Get tickets to a Book Launch + Concert event here: violinscratches.com/shows

NCDN News 2026-04-16 Protecting our community

Our latest newsletter is available online. Thanks for reading!
ncdn.work/newsletter20...

Live: Smith holding Senate floor to oppose measure opening mining near the Boundary Waters If passed, the legislation would head to President Donald Trump’s desk for a signature. The final vote is scheduled for the morning of April 16.

www.startribune.com/live-us-sena...

Smith to hold Senate floor 'for hours' in protest of effort to reverse mining ban near BWCAW The Senate is considering a resolution authored by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber that would overturn a Biden-era moratorium on mining in part of the Superior National Forest.

www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/minneso...

Critical Atlantic current significantly more likely to collapse than thought Scientists say finding is ‘very concerning’ as collapse would be catastrophic for Europe, Africa and the Americas

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is what we’re fighting for!

Because of you, calls are coming in strong and your voices are being heard in the Senate. It’s making a difference.

Keep going!!! Call 202-224-3121 and tell your Senators to vote NO on House Joint Resolution 140.

Liberal candidates sweep school board elections as Moms for Liberty loses ground By Carrie Sampson, Assistant Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Arizona State University,The Conversation, Michigan AdvanceElection races for local school boards have ...

Liberal candidates sweep school board elections as Moms for Liberty loses ground

www.rawstory.com/district-sch...

Counterpoint | The case for a Minnesota climate superfund This bill will hold fossil fuel companies responsible for climate change and require that huge corporations pay their share of cleanup costs, write state lawmakers Ann Johnson Stewart and Athena Holli...

Our Climate Superfund authors are in the strib today, laying out the case for the superfund clearly: you make a mess, you clean it up.

Regular Minnesotans shouldn't get stuck with the bill while the fossil fuel companies that caused the climate crisis are let off the hook. #mnleg

Long-term private opposition to a public tax option was able to take advantage of a shift to an administration run by officials who doubted the value of public interest projects, and ended the Direct File after consulting with private sector opponents and with little attention to feedback from the public. The Direct File team built a great public interest tool. Then the CEO of an Andreessen-Horowitz-backed start-up, his hedge fund boss, and the private companies that want to kill competition for their products got together and ended it.

The Direct File case offers interesting implications for state capacity. It showed that government could build good products. The debate on technical feasibility is over. The bigger question is whether we can have public interest capacity in domains where private interests lobby against it.

Caught in the Crackdown: As Arrests at Anti-ICE Protests Piled Up, Prosecutions Crumbled ProPublica and FRONTLINE found more than 300 protesters and bystanders who were arrested on charges like assaulting an immigration agent or interfering with law enforcement. Over and over, the accusat...

NEW: “Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to," Gregory Bovino told Border Patrol officers in 2025.

But a review of hundreds of such arrests shows that charges brought against protesters and bystanders repeatedly fell apart under scrutiny.

w/ @frontlinepbs.bsky.social

Opinion | Here’s How to Defeat Trumpism

www.nytimes.com/2026/04/14/o...

IRAN: Why the Blockade Is an Oracle Story If you have been following this newsletter, you know I have spent a long time tracking Oracle through nearly every corner of American infrastructure, from the Cerner rebuild to the Stargate contracts ...

"Yesterday Apple Maps removed the names of nearly every town and village in Lebanon. Google Maps still showed them, and every other mapping service still showed them. Apple’s version showed the roads, the borders, the coastline, but the towns had no names"
thedreydossier.substack.com/p/iran-why-t...

Ex-CIA director calls for ousting Trump: ‘25th amendment was written with him in mind’ John Brennan says president who made volatile remarks about destroying Iranian civilization ‘is clearly unhinged’

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

US inflation jumps to highest level in almost two years A surge in prices at the pump due to the Iran war has pushed the inflation rate to 3.3%.

Soaring pump prices drive US inflation to highest level in almost two years, Inflation in the US accelerated last month to its highest rate in nearly two years, as surging oil prices triggered by the US-Israel war in Iran started to spill over into the wider economy. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Look at the women at NASA.

They are the ones pushing the boundaries of science, solving problems most people can’t even understand, and carrying this country forward, while our politicians right now posture and stumble through talking points.

And they are doing it all with joy.👇

Kushner looks like even he can’t believe he’s getting away with being a lead negotiator when he’s the son in law of the president and their family has billions of dollars worth of deals in the region

Make the Refusal to Quit Go Viral People do what the people around them do. That is not a weakness - it’s the mechanism. This brief is about how to use it.

antiauthoritarianplaybook.substack.com/p/make-the-r...

Polar bears drowning had always been my mental image of climate change but penguins are apparently drowning first. Ugh how horrible to see your baby chick drown after incubating them for weeks on your feet. On a glacier. The animals deserve better humans than us

Missed this yesterday-

www.currentaffairs.org/news/2019/04...

FULL TOUR: A tour graphic with a filigreed border of pink and orange, and a white center. Each show is listed in two columns and at the bottom, there is a picture of Gaelynn Lea's book cover, as well as her press photo. It reads tickets available at violinscratches.com/shows and says that each venue is wheelchair accessible and that ASL interpretation will be provided.

She's counting down the days! On April 14, Gaelynn's book, IT WASN'T MEANT TO BE PERFECT, will be released.

Pre-order at @algonquinbooks.bsky.social or here: linktr.ee/gaelynnlea

On that same day, along with her book release comes the first stop of her book tour at @zeitgeistduluth.bsky.social!

More than 100 local artists and students contributed pages to the coloring book, “Draw Together.” The images range from monarchs to a raccoon with birthday cakes, hearts and “love” written in several languages, and a family of loons with the words “You belong here” floating above.

Ask Us Anything Your Iran War questions, money and partisanship, and recovering national credibility

wolvesandsheep.substack.com/p/ask-us-any...

ICE acknowledges it is using powerful spyware In a letter sent last week, ICE's top official indicated to members of Congress that the agency is using a spyware tool to intercept encrypted messages of fentanyl traffickers.

www.npr.org/2026/04/07/n...

House Dems Opposed to Cutting Pentagon Budget Got 3.7x More in Defense Industry Cash Fewer Democrats voted yesterday to cut the Defense budget by 10% than voted for an identical proposal last year.

The Iran War is showing that for a fraction of the military budget, the U.S. could invest in health care, housing, and education.

Progressives proposed just this, via a 10% trim to the massive Pentagon budget, when they had a chance to pass it in 2021 under Biden.

Most House Dems voted it down.

Meeting the Moment with Anat Shenker-Osorio and Andrea Pitzer A recording from Andrea Pitzer and Michael Podhorzer's live video

Absolutely essential wisdom from @andreapitzer.bsky.social laying out why "concentration camps" is not merely apt but essential terminology and rousing us to act now, while we still have the freedom to do so, to #CloseTheCamps and #BringThemHome

substack.com/home/post/p-...

As SAVE America Act stalls, GOP states are quietly enacting their own proof of citizenship laws Read Democracy Docket's state-by-state breakdown here.

NEW: Trump’s effort to push the SAVE America Act has so far been met with resistance.

While the measure remains stalled in the Senate, that hasn’t stopped some GOP-led states from proposing their own versions of the bill.

Here's a state-by-state breakdown of where those efforts stand👇